When John Perkins wrote 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman' he got his fair share of criticism. Sebastian Mallaby of the Washington Post was keen to point out the facts as he saw them. But it's hard to find anything particularly controversial in the broad thrust of what Perkins lets us in on namely:  the US has primarily used economic muscle to build the biggest empire in the world today, and corporate power is far reaching in US society today.

Following on from posts of this blog about John Pilger's (journalist) and Niall Ferguson's (academic) take of US power in Latin America, it interesting to read Perkin's account as someone who was involved directly in the development of the modern day empire.

In his book, Perkins uses the example of General Omar Torrijos in Panama:

"In 1972 Perkins went to see the then dictator of Panama, General Omar Torrijos. Torrijos was a nationalist who was eager to wrest control of the Panama Canal from the US. Perkins went in to read him the riot act and came out with what sounded like an agreement. Some years later, Torrijos started talking to the Japanese about building a larger, sea-level canal for Panama that would have undermined American influence and corporate interests in the area.

One night in 1981 Torrijos died when his Twin Otter aircraft crashed under mysterious circumstances. Perkins is convinced he was killed by US interests who placed a bomb on the plane. Had he lived, Perkins writes in his book, Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man, "He would have served as a role model for a generation of leaders in the Americas, Africa and Asia - something the CIA, the NSA [National Security Agency] and the EHMs [economic hit men] could not allow."